


The Seer and the Carnival

by BirdyMarie



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix It Fic, Gen, I have No Excuse, M/M, Modern AU, Reincarnation, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdyMarie/pseuds/BirdyMarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sura is only relieved that they're all together again, the ones that count, and it doesn't matter that her husband will never know her real name, either.  Until the local carnival seer decides differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seer and the Carnival

There was a gaggle of them wandering through the traveling carnival. Sura looked over all of them, feeling her heart swell, idly tracing a hand over Arthur's chest to feel his heartbeat. Her smile was bittersweet as she watched Melody and Ramira laughing with Nadia over the latest wedding-prep fumble she and Cris had encountered. Cris and Arthur volunteered at the same firehouse as all of them: Guy and Brett and Victor and Doug and Luther and Ron and Drew. Melody's husband, branded Otis the friendly grouch, was fire chief. Brett had found Peter all on his own, Victor's wife Erin was just beginning to show with their first child, and Guy was even beginning to show interest in Sage. Sura was reassured by that, and by her turning out to be Ron and Drew's cousin. It was nice to have the girl closer bound by blood. Doug had found Charlotte-called-Charlie, and while they had not dated for long she and Ramira had become too close for the blonde to be let go from their tight circle. And Charlie had brought them Nasir.

  
Sura reached to trail her fingers through the young man's long dark curls, smiling softly. When asked why she was so very fond of Nasir, she only told anyone, even Arty her husband, that he reminded her of someone very precious she had known before.

  
"Are ya happy, Ma?" the young Arab asked over his shoulder, smiling. Oh, but sometimes he was so beautiful it hurt her to look at him.

  
"Yes, pup," she said softly. "Everyone that counts made it this time."

  
"Aw, c'mon Sura, we're all big kids now," Ron said, arm slung over Drew's shoulder. She smiled at the subtle attempt for Nasir's attention. "We try hard as we can to all get together, you know that."

  
"And I love you all for it," she said, just as gently. Everyone cooed and bumped shoulders and hips and elbows and Ron and Nasir largely ignored each other despite their transparent emotions and she hated it but what could she do. Other times, other life cycles, she had tried pushing everyone where she thought they should go. It had not worked.

Arty pressed a kiss into her hair and she closed her eyes, sending out a prayer of thanks to the higher powers that had finally, finally all brought them together again and in a time and place when they could be as they were meant. Someday.  
"Look, Sharon, the strong man game has purple snakes for prizes this year." She looked up adoringly at her husband, who would never know her by another name. "You want one?"

  
She nodded with a big smile, pushing thoughts of the past and past lives aside for a time. She, Erin, Melody, Nadia, Ramira and Charlie stood back to watch their men compete for small stuffed toys. Her cheeks were beginning to hurt from repressing smiles and tears of joy. Sage went first and hit lighter than she could have, but then presented Guy with a small, tie dyed heart on a loop.

  
"For your rearview, arshloch."

  
They laughed and kissed while Peter hip checked Brett out of the way to win him a second-tier prize of a stuffed duck. Doug went next and won a pink snake, offering it to Charlie with a charming, knowing smile. She accepted it, telling him haughtily, "Apology accepted."

  
Ron and Drew pushed and shoved at each other too much to win anything, leaving the hammer open for Victor to win the giant stuffed tiger to present to Erin. Luther won the biggest prize rank as well (unsurprising given his love of hammers) and picked a giant brown teddy bear that he handed to Cris.

  
"For the next baby!" he bellowed. Nadia pulled Cris back from winning anything after that. They spent almost as much time kissing as Guy and Sage. Drew went again and got a silly hat that he kept pulling down over Ramira's eyes (much to her chagrin), then Ron went and picked out the glasses with the fake mustache attached to go with it. Sura adored their friendship. Otis won another tie-dye heart for Melody, which was accepted with a sweet kiss. Then Arty went and won her a purple snake to match the tattoo she had wound around her thigh that no one else knew was there. She was rubbing the soft fabric across her lips when Nasir came back from his turn to present her with - she gasped . He shrugged as he held it out to her.

  
"I don't know."

  
She tried to control her recoil, though a line appeared between Nasir's brows when he noticed her hand shaking as she accepted the crimson red serpent.

  
"I do," called a low voice from behind her. Sura felt herself choking on the denial rising in her entire being. She whirled to face the dark haired woman. "They are, after all, supposed to match."

  
"No," she whimpered, all the emotions of the day boiling to the surface. "No you can't, I just got them all back."

  
Lucretia stood, wearing robes and jewels and flowing locks dressed as the carnival seer, the sarcastic cunt. Illythia was beside her, long blonde curls missing, replaced with an indiscernible buzz cut. There was Seppia, standing behind them, holding Lucretia's fucking train like it mattered.

  
"Do you know these ladies, dear?" Arty had placed a hand under her elbow and Nasir flanked her other side, eyes narrowed in distrust. Her heart swelled at the same time it fell as she felt all of her loves, all of the people who had helped her life and livesmate survive through his first birth and subsequent centuries, now circle about her like she mattered - like she needed keeping safe.

  
She ignored her husband. "No," she said again, pleading.

"Yes," Lucretia replied as if talking to a reluctant child. "It is as it should be once again."That was all the warning offered. Then Lucretia raised both of her hands and blew across them, aiming for her husband. 

Sura knew how it would happen. She had undergone the process of remembering everything literally dozens of times since that first wild ride through ancient Rome. She only hoped everyone else was stalwart enough to survive the press of memories:

  
Gannicus and Melitta falling while Oenomaus was none the wiser, Barca and Crixus hating, then reconciling, then Pietros loving and dying and Naevia loving and living though she wanted to die while Spartacus roused Crixus to rebellion after Sura and Varro both died for loving him, Agron beside them after Duro fell for their ideals that raised Mira and Chadara and Nasir from their lowly beginnings even as they cost Aurelia her life, even as hers was replaced by thousands, Lugo and Saxa and Donar amongst them, Gannicus returning to them against all odds, Oenomaus in tow, and then there was love and glory but also agony and death and other faces, smatterings of loyalties and betrayals and victories and deaths until everyone's end was displayed for all to see, Donar denying anyone's use of him ever again, Crixus and Naevia greeting death as old friend, Gannicus giggling madly into Oenomaus' waiting arms after Saxa and Lugo fell as they always should have, free and wild, as Agron and Nasir lived with their leftover flock of goats and humans and children who would never know the press of chains or the sting of reprimand, all thanks to the man they had left under a cairn of rocks and a newly purposeless shield bearing a crimson serpent that had portended it all.

  
Then it was over. And they were all left standing as they were when it started. It could not have taken longer than a heartbeat. But all three godless women were gone, leaving Sura to turn to all of them with nothing but the hope that none had gone mad.

  
Her husband was staring at her with wide, new eyes.

  
Everyone was silent for a long time.

Spartacus finally broke the silence. "I will never love another woman," he said wonderingly. 

She looked around at all of them, tears finally falling as they had threatened to all day.

"Dude," Duro said wonderingly, eyes wide and roaming over Nasir, Nasir who had taken his place and made it better. "He still thinks the sun shines out of your ass." Agron slapped the back of his hand against his brother's stomach absently, eyes just as wide but not moving from Nasir's face.

"Well, I still think the sun shines out of his dimples so that's okay," he finally said with a shrug and a shy smile. 

It broke the tension, as their love usually did. Everyone was so overwhelmed, Sura most among them, and it was she who finally suggested, "Let's go home, everyone."

"Our house!" the German brothers hollered, causing everyone to look up, various states of confusion and tear-streaks visible on their faces. 

"We obviously have the most alcohol," Duro supplied helpfully. There was no further argument.

 

"I am such a fucking asshole," Varro was saying from the couch, looking at nothing. 

"You were," Aurelia agreed pleasantly. She was in the recliner with her feet up, ankles swollen already. "Just be better now, that's all." They smiled at each other. "And I'm sorry I was so horrible to you," she offered, switching her gaze to Spartacus, who was standing in the middle of the room, slowly circling and studying each of them in turn. His eyes settled on her. "You did great things, despite the ones that fell by the wayside."

He smiled. Sura did as well, where she was sitting next to Varro. "The two of you always do find an understanding with each other," she said without meaning to. 

"How many times have you had to go through this, Ma?" Nasir asked from where he was pressed against Agron's side as the taller man and Crixus-cum-Naevia attempted to express their regard for each other without admitting they would all be better friends from now on. 

Sura smiled at her husband again. "Every time I see Spartacus for the first time. I get hit with it. Like the bulldozer he is."

Spartacus, for his part, rolled his eyes at her. "That doesn't answer his question, dear."

"Just as pussy-whipped this time," Gannicus joked from the kitchenette where he was mixing...something suspicious...with Oenomaus, Saxa and Pietros.

"That's how _you_ ended up last time," Mira quipped from across the room where she sat with Barca, Melitta and Donar at the card table.

Saxa looked up at that. "Did Sibyl have a boy or a girl?" she asked Nasir. Gannicus dropped the ladle he had been stirring with.

Agron swallowed faster than was wise to answer. "She had a boy that looked like a girl," he said, flashing his million watt grin at Gannicus.

"Felix," Nasir called, remembering. 

"When the fuck was this?" he bellowed. 

"Calm down, drama queen," Duro said, straightening from pulling their plastic pint cup overflow out from under the sink. Lugo appeared with another armful just after him. "You could see her belly when the brain video got to the goats."

Lugo raised an empty Saengerbund cup stolen from Oktoberfest into the air. "To the couple who lived!"

Agron smiled again, pressing a kiss into Nasir's hair. The shorter man looked just as delighted.

"Was the redhead really a Roman?" Chadara asked from her place at Sura's feet in front of the coffee table. 

"Yeah, asshole," Gannicus hollered, pointing through the kitchenette window to Spartacus. "What's with dumping that badass," a point at Mira, "for a fucking Roman?"

Sura heaved an enormous sigh. "I'm glad you've learned to deal with unwanted attention and pressure, Guy," she said pointedly. He had the grace to blush. Melitta and Oenomaus laughed loudest.

When everyone quieted, Spartacus had to set them off again of course. "Besides, my favorite general, she dumped me, remember?" Everyone burst into laughter again, because what else could they do? Sura watched her husband turn to the woman who had soothed him after her death. Mira toasted him with her beer. Then she stood and strode over to sit on the arm of the couch next to Sura herself. 

"To strong, if not hard, feelings," she said, and held out her bottle. Sura tapped the neck of it with her empty fist and looked up at her helplessly. Mira just shrugged in answer, then drank. What the fuck else could they do?

"Speaking of the brain video." Donar rose from the card table and came to crouch next to Chadara on the floor, knees and back popping on the way down. They were all still so big. "I wasn't very fair to you," he said gently to the blonde. 

She cocked her head at him and agreed, "No."

He held his hand out to her. "May I have a chance to make that right?"

She studied him, then reached over his outstretched hand to tilt his head down by his ears. She pressed a kiss to the bald crown. "Yes," she whispered with closed eyes. Then she chuckled as he rearranged himself to be sitting on his bottom beside her. "Y'know it's funny," she mused to the room at large, "this time around I'm all about free love. And self-respect."

"Hey," Mira said firmly from behind her and the blonde fell back with her head against the pixie-faced woman's knee. "Free love means if you want to sleep your way to the top, then fuck it, you can and no one can judge you for it." She leaned down so that their foreheads were touching. "Remember, Charlie," she said, just as pointedly as Sura. "You're only a slut if you feel bad about it."

"Hear hear!" Duro and Nasir both called. Sura was so very proud of her replacement and her brood. 

Agron had suddenly turned to Nasir. He was silent a long time before speaking. "There have...been others." It was no question. But Nasir must have sensed the question in him because he smiled.

"There have," he said, then bit his lip as his eye lids grew heavy. "They were by choice. And I cannot wait to dismantle you with what I learned from them."

Agron's eyelids fluttered, but he only pressed a chaste kiss to his love's forehead. 

Neither of them wanted to rush their first kiss. It was just a fact. They both knew it. They all knew it. Nasir looked over to Pietros in the kitchen, who shrugged and replied, "Don't look at me, he got road head on the way here. I couldn't wait."

While everyone else laughed at Barca's blush, Nasir nodded understandingly. "It had been much longer for you, I understand."

"Actually," Sura spoke up. Everyone quieted. "This is in fact the first they've been back on the same time frame since the first time."

There was no response. What response was there?

"Maybe you should...tell us. About how it's been," Spartacus said carefully. 

"For you," Chadara clarified. 

Sura looked down into her untouched cup of water. Her brow furrowed. She did not know how or even where to start. "Sometimes...well." She looked up and around at them. "Like I said to that cunt Lucretia, I just got you all back with Chadara finally bringing Nasir around last year." She shared a watery smile with him before continuing into the rapt silence. "And this is the first time we've all been in the same place and time...sometimes I'll find...it's the worst when..." She finally looked around again and Mira put a hand on her shoulder while Varro got up to change places with Spartacus. She took a deep breath. "I always find you," she said to him. She took Mira's hand into her lap without looking away from her husband. "And then I remember everything. Every time. Then it's just a question of who comes into our lives after that." She finally broke eye contact. 

"Crixus, you are always there." The Gaul dropped his head. "As are you, Gannicus, whether you'd like it or not you are tied to my husband for all eternity, as are you, Agron." The Celt and the German exchanged a glance before lifting their beers to her. She repressed an eye roll as she thought how typical the action was. "Unsurprisingly," she continued after swallowing thickly, "you are always there as well, Varro." No one spoke for a long time.

"What about us?" Aurelia finally said, pointing mostly to Naevia but trying to include Saxa and Nasir in the gesture. Sura winced. 

"Some of that is my fault," she admitted, and when no one did anything other than look confused she continued. "I...am...older. Than all of you. As a seer. And I don't really...end. But Spartacus is who I am destined for, he was made for me, by whatever powers that be, and he is who I will always find. That's..." she looked around apologetically before finishing, "That's not really so...for the rest of you."

"Us mere mortals," Melitta quipped. Then yelped when Gannicus squeezed right above her knee where it tickled. 

Sura dropped her gaze back to her cup and tried to take strength from the squeeze Mira dealt her hand. "The first few times I found any of you others...I pushed."

"So trying to make any of us friends or lovers never works," Chadara guessed correctly. 

Sura nodded. Then she looked to Aurelia. "I don't know if it's any comfort, but Varro only ever falls for women who look like you. Once he even found Sibyl."

Aurelia guffawed, rubbing her small belly. "Now you're definitely not allowed into work," she said, looking to where Varro had wrinkled his nose and went to sit on the arm of his wife's chair while fielding...interesting glares from Gannicus and Saxa both. 

"You work with Sibyl?" Spartacus asked and she nodded.

"I work with Laeta," Nasir said absently, eyes far away.

"That Kore girl lives in our building," Melitta added.

"Don't look so upset, Saxa," Sura continued, "Once you were with Duro." At their horrified looks she clarified. "This is the first the universe saw fit to make you blood relatives." She turned to address the room at large. "You all go where you will, and with no interference, yes, Naevia, you always find Crixus. Nasir and Agron always find each other, though those few times one isn't born while the other is, in both cases there's never another." She turned to Barca. "Auctus hasn't come back." Pietros only looked to his boyfriend, following the twitch in his jaw.

"Are you saying he wasn't important?" Barca finally asked, looking up with eyes blazing. 

Sura took a patient breath. "To Spartacus, and therefore to the cycle, no."

Everyone waited. Barca continued to glare at Sura before turning back to Pietros. He squeezed his thigh, then buried his face in his neck. The younger man nodded at Sura to continue. 

"Sometimes, great things happen. And they're set in motion by small things like me." She looked around at everyone, helpless. "I've been the start of a slave rebellion, but I was also a Nazi spy for the Manhattan Project," she said. "We do as we must to further the world, my darling family." That seemed to be what everyone was waiting for, as pleasant conversation started up again while everyone re-mingled.

 

The sudden burst of Nasir's laughter cut through the room, causing everyone to look over through the kitchenette window to where he was standing with Spartacus, Varro and Lugo. He stopped just as abruptly then covered his embarrassed grin with one hand. Finally Lugo raised his chin at him in silent prompt. 

Sura smiled broadly at him across the room as he met her eyes. "It's just..." he bent to look through the divider at Barca at the card table, "I still haven't slept with Castus," he said, losing hold on his giggle halfway through the sentence before clapping a hand over his mouth once more. Lugo and Donar erupted into laughter and even as Spartacus snorted into his beer.

"...Holy shit, his name is something stupid like Casper or Caspian but yeah, he fucking lifeguards at our pool!" Barca was saying. He and Pietros had an apartment in the same complex as Nasir's. 

Sura looked over to where Agron was standing with Melitta, Donar and Duro, looking like he did not know whether to smile or self-flagellate and she hollered, "And you never have either, precious."

Mira led the roar of cheering. "She always was his biggest fan after the beginning," Chadara mused from the ground.

"Mmm," she agreed. "She often understands him even better than you do, little doll."

Chadara seemed to digest that before nodding. "Mira has always been wrapped in her pride, I suppose. Even today I believeyou can't be too proud to seize every opportunity for...advancement, whatever."

Sura studied her for a long moment. "You should come learn from me," she finally said. The blonde whirled to her, eyes wide. Sura smiled down at her. "You've only been getting smarter, each go round."

Across the room, Agron had finally made it into the kitchen. 

"So," Nasir said into the awkward silence. Now he knew he was the one more likely to start conflict resolution, he may as well use the knowledge. He barely registered Donar, Lugo and Spartacus beating a hasty retreat. 

"So," Agron confirmed. This was happening. "Sura said...we do best..."

"On our own terms," Nasir finished when it seemed his giant love was having trouble. 

"I was going to ask you out," Agron finally said plaintively, stepping forward to wrap an arm around Nasir's waist.

"I _believe_ you," Nasir murmured, pressing his forehead into Agron's chin with his eyes closed, ignoring the rest of them over the counter window. "I still believe you. In all things. I always have, my heart, my breath, the blood in my veins."

Agron cupped Nasir's face and tilted it up so he could look at him. Then he leaned down to whisper against his lover's cheek. "My pulse," he began, before moving to the other cheek. "My breath." He finally turned to speak against Nasir's mouth. "My very life." He captured the other's lips in a deep, fierce kiss and the entire room erupted into cheers from their held breath.Even Sura had been holding her nose to keep from giggling. 

"Fucking gods, I feel like I've just seen you both naked," Oenomaus called, hand over his eyes.

Chadara raised a finger. "I've seen him naked-" she pointed at Nasir. " _That_ was _so_ much better."

"I've seen him naked," Duro chimed in, pointing at Agron. "I'll second the lady."

"Gods, it was even framed, like TV!" Aurelia crowed from the recliner. Nasir snuggled up under Agron's chin, smiling and wincing and trying to hide, even as Agron grinned widely at the group at large through the kitchenette window. 

Duro turned to Lugo. "Dude, c'I crash your place tonight? I think mine's gonna be a little..." he let the sentence die off as everyone laughed.

"I am so fucking glad I got to meet you this time," Nasir said to Duro in the ensuing lull. Then he reared back from where he had been cuddled under Agron's chin, eyes so wide they took up half his face. Sura snorted into the beer she had finally accepted from Melitta. Agron's eyes were just as wide. 

"What's your brother's name," he asked Nasir, breathless.

"H- Hakim. Your parents?"

"Are alive and kicking. Yours?"

Nasir's shoulder heaved with labored breaths. "I don't even think they know I'm gay."

The two stared at each other until Pietros perked up from Barca's shoulder to look over at Nasir. "Hey wait, how old are you?"

Nasir looked down at the beer in his hand, then cut his eyes up to the other boy.

Pietros' entire face split with his grin. "To the next birthday then!" he called, raising his own.

Nasir haltingly raised his as well. "To the next two!"

Pietros raised both arms over his head without drinking. "I'm not the youngest!" Everyone laughed, even Barca, who then tapped the bottom of his bottle to the top of Pietros'. It overflowed into their laps, to everyone's shared guffaws. Then they were making out and everything was okay.

"Alright, everyone out!" Agron bellowed. Sura smiled, laid her hand over her husband's heart, and again sent her thanks to the gods. Everything was finally, finally as it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno guys I truly have no excuse for this one it wouldn't leave me the hell alone, Duro telling Nasir Agron was still in love and Nasir being excited to actually meet Duro...further headcanon, for some reason Chadara and Duro are my het OTP, so he waits for Donar to be nice to Chadara the once then swoops in and after this is all over Mira and Donar found each other when my back was turned. I didn't even know that was a -thing- until after I wrote this story.


End file.
